Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

Sookie Stackhouse would be more than happy to lead a quiet life with her new vampire boyfriend Bill, but things keep getting in the way of that. First, (the cliffhanger from Dead Until Dark) she finds out that a friend of hers has just been murdered and shoved into the sheriff's car and no one seems to want to investigate further. Then, if it wasn't strange enough finding out that vampires and shape shifters exist, she's attacked by a new kind of creature and it's up to Bill and some of his vampire friends to save her from the creature's poisonous bites. One favor deserves another and when head vampire Eric asks Sookie to investigate the disappearance of a fellow vampire in Dallas, she goes along with it (under certain conditions). Things start to turn deadly, however, when she meets up with members of a certain church that would like nothing more than to see vampires and those who sympathize with them disappear for good.

I really enjoyed this second book in the Sookie Stackhouse series. I love that the civil rights issues facing vampires parallel the current struggle for gay rights and past struggles for African Americans, without being preachy -because regardless of how I feel about issues and especially if I'm for them, I can't stand heavy handed preaching in books. It's called subtlety, people! It cracked me up that even though the government can't decide if vampires are alive, they have no problem with taxing them. Then, if they're getting taxed, naturally they should get the right to vote (absentee of course, since they can't come out in the daytime). Though (with some exceptions) they're happy to have these rights, there are some rights that still aren't available to them and quite a few people around to make sure that they don't get them.

The Fellowship of the Sun (the church who are against vampire rights) continues to fascinate me and I was so glad they play a larger part in Living Dead in Dallas. It's really amusing that there's this large mega-church whose one goal is the extinction of an entire race of beings. Picture the Westboro Baptist Church on a grander scale and slightly less crazy first impression. They're certainly more of a parody of them than of 99% of the less violent religious people, so don't think that the books or Charlaine Harris are trying to issue this scathing indictment of all religion or religious people or anything -just of bigotry in general. Many of the characters, including Sookie, attend church. It was she who hilariously pointed out that the sign on the church's lawn "Only Jesus rose from the dead" was a fallacy. I just really enjoy reading about crazy splinter groups.

Sookie and Bill's relationship was interesting to me, because unlike a lot of books I've read, the relationship wasn't the focus of the whole book. Sure, they're together and they love each other, but Sookie isn't sure about how long it'll last or even if she's necessarily in love with him. They have problems, just like every other couple. The only exceptions are that they're not allowed to marry (not that Bill's asked!), she can't give him children, and he has to be out of the sun by morning.

It was really strange to me how the murder (the victim's name I will not reveal) played out, however. It's dealt with at the very beginning of the book, sort of forgotten, and then only at the end dealt with again, as though Harris thought to herself, "oh yeah, I guess we need to find out who did it, huh?". I can understand why it had to be this way, as elements involving finding out who the murderer was were made possible by earlier events, but it was just so random.

The world of the Southern Vampire series has been an interesting and often hilarious one to discover. Even if you're not really into vampires (and I wouldn't blame you) the mysteries and social issues are clever and interesting enough to sustain the books. This is only book two and from what I understand it keeps getting better and better!

http://thechickmanifesto.blogspot.com/2009/04/living-dead-in-dallas-by-charlaine.html